Testing- Talk with Colin Cartwright

During the week (Wed 26th) I attended one of Colin's drop in sessions as I wanted to discuss some ideas/thoughts on how I should go about testing my project.  I started by telling Colin what I felt the main issues I had when it came to the thought process of planing the tests.  The main concerns I had was the-

• Amount of people to test.
• The amount of Genres used in the tests
• The use of vocals
• Different methods of testing
• Ways to get volunteers

I feel that Colin answered each of my questions really well and was able to give me lots to think about.  I think the main thing was he showed me that I was over complicating parts of my project when there was much simpler ways of achieving the same end result.  He told me that when it comes to the testing I can get away with using 20 people instead of the vast amounts that I have seen on other projects.  This mainly being down to resources and time.  Colin also suggested that when it comes to productive ways of testing that I make sure that I use more practical types of testing.  Colin also brought to my attention that I should be thinking carefully about the difference between attention and learning aspects of concentration and which side I want to focus on the most which at the moment I feel is the learning side.  Overall this meeting really cleared up the parts of the project that I was most worried about now allowing me to move forward with my research.